I’m writing this because it’s out of the public eye, and I don’t have to explain it to everyone I meet. I am already (1 day in) sick of the people discussing USF’s financial hardship. Calls for the President’s head are nothing new, but I think a lot of people are going off the deep end without realizing how USF got to the place they are.

First and most importantly: do I believe that the current administration has made 100% correct choices? No. I think in every administration there are choices people are going to regret. Placing such a large amount of the Endowment into the market, as well as flirting with a possibly iffy income to debt ratio were bad moves, no one is saying otherwise.

What pisses me off is people running their mouth about this building or that expansion or this program being too financially draining, when 99% of the time they have no clue where the money is coming from. You have an x factor in the donors, people want to see specific things when they donate money. “If I give this money you have to do this” is not uncommon to hear in the world of University Fund raising.

So what happened? The University did spend too much, and they lost a big part of their endowment to the market, and didn’t have enough foresight to think the market would ever crash. In short: they got comfortable living on the edge and it bit them: big time.

Realistically a 9% salary reduction isn’t the end of the world for most employees (Cut the football coaches by 15% if you want- they make more than most the people with skills required to run the place!!) and cutting staff is part of today’s world unfortunately. I’m glad they’re taking agressive measures to correct the balance sheet: i just hope they stop making stupid choices to offset the good moves.

This isn’t the first time USF’s had to tighten the belt and pinch the penny’s: they can trim a lot of fat if they want to, lets see how it goes. All I’ll say is: I’m glad I got out when I did.